Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs Return To Ice For 2021-22 Season

By Ryan Wilkes

Staff Writer

December 10, 2021

ROANOKE — Over the past year, there’s been a glaring hole in Virginia’s professional sports. The Commonwealth had been stripped of its minor league sports teams, forced to take a pause during the pandemic.

As Virginia — and the rest of the country — began to fully re-open in the spring, Minor League Baseball and semi-professional basketball leagues returned, allowing fans to return to the stands at full capacity.

And, to top it off, another large attraction has returned to the Roanoke Valley after a year off, giving residents in the region an opportunity to cheer on a local team at an affordable price.

The Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs, a member of the Southern Professional Hockey League, returned to the ice at the Berglund Center on Oct. 15 and attendance, according to the team, has been stellar since.

In the league, the Dawgs draw in an average of 3,204 fans-per-night, good for third-best in the league.

Play-by-play announcer Mitch Stewart understands how important the Dawgs are to those in the Roanoke Valley and doesn’t take the fans for granted.

“Our fan experience is something we cherish and are very excited about as an organization,” Stewart said. “We didn’t have hockey for a year and you never know how that’s going to affect you as an organization but it has come back so strong.”

While Roanoke took the year off from playing, the Dawgs’ identity remained the same. Minority owner Chip Grubb has seen the players reassure fans that his team was back like it never left.

“We want it to be Roanoke’s team,” Grubb said. “I think the players have done a good job of relating. They’re just everyday guys.”

“Roanoke’s team” enters its fifth season as a franchise after an ownership group headed by Bob McGinn and his three sons that play in the NHL — Tye, Brock and Jamie — purchased the under-performing Mississippi Surge franchise and relocated the team prior to the 2016-17 season.

Nine games into the season, the Dawgs sit at 5-4 on the season, good for seventh place in the league out of 11 teams. The fans have come out in droves, but defenseman Thomas Pokorney is seeking to give them more to cheer about on the ice.

“As a whole, we all know that we’ve kind of underperformed,” Pokorney said. “A lot of close one goal game losses that could’ve gone our way. There’s a lot of potential for this team.”